Recently, an image pickup apparatus with excellent portability has been in demand for efficient medical treatment at home. In a case where an inpatient is at hospital, the patient cannot move easily depending on the condition of a disease, and an image pickup apparatus moving around a hospital ward is in demand.
Actually, size reduction of the image pickup apparatus is in progress, and a portable apparatus has been realized in ultrasonic diagnostic apparatuses and X-ray apparatuses. For example, a portable medical diagnostic imaging apparatus relating to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is realized.
An existing portable medical diagnostic imaging apparatus can be connected to a network by inserting a LAN (Local Area Network) cable to a network connector provided in the image pickup apparatus.
Since the portable medical diagnostic imaging apparatus has been realized recently, not only storing of picked-up images in the portable medical diagnostic imaging apparatus which picked up the images but also storing of the picked-up images in a medical image management system by transferring them via the network similarly to the existing apparatus is in demand.
Here, if the picked-up image picked up by the portable medical diagnostic imaging apparatus is to be transferred to and stored in the medical image management system via the network, it is necessary for the portable medical diagnostic imaging apparatus to be connected to the network via wireless connection without using the LAN cable in order to exert its superiority of portability.
However, in the case of the wireless connection, since signal strength of radio waves is different depending on a place where the portable medical diagnostic imaging apparatus is used, stable wireless communication cannot be conducted in some cases depending on the signal strength in the wireless connection. If a picked-up image is transferred to the medical image management system when stable wireless communication cannot be conducted, for example, image transfer might fail in the middle of the communication, and re-try might have to be made in some cases.
Thus, such a portable medical diagnostic imaging apparatus is in demand that, if stable wireless communication is possible, picked-up images are transferred, while if stable wireless communication is not possible, processing other than image transfer processing and applying a light load to the network is executed while the user is moving.